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General: Video Eyewear for Gamers!

TaeraTaera Community ManagerMember CommonPosts: 1,078
in News & Features Discussion

What gamer hasn't dreamed of virtual reality gameplay? With the help of Icuiti's new interactive Video Eyeware for gamers, gamers everywhere can take a step closer to complete immersion with integrated head tracking, speakers and microphone, and more!

Rochester, New York, March 6, 2007 Icuiti, the leading
manufacturer of Video Eyewear, today launches the iWear VR920. Worn
like regular glasses, the iWear VR920 is the first Video Eyewear
specifically designed for online game play and Internet
communications. It allows fans of massively multiplayer online games
(MMOs) and virtual social worlds to fully immerse themselves, look
around and communicate with each other.

As part of Icuiti s family of Video Eyewear products, the iWear VR920
is the first video communications tool for the Internet that ties in
visual and verbal communications. With a large field of view optics,
integrated head tracking, speakers and microphone, users can move,
look around, listen, and communicate with each other almost like
being in the real world.

The iWear VR920 will change the way people experience the plethora
of massively multiplayer online applications, from World of Warcraft
and Everquest to virtual social environments like Second Life , says
Icuiti CEO Paul Travers. It brings life and a personal sense of
being there to these 3D applications. You are no longer staring at a
flat screen, you are inside cyberspace.

iWear VR920 won an Innovation Award at CES 2007.

iWear VR920 highlights:

* Twin high-resolution 640 x 480 LCD displays with VGA support out to
1024 x 768

* 62 virtual screens viewed at 9 feet

* Integrated 3 DOF head tracker makes looking around as easy as being
there

* Built-in noise-canceling microphone and removable, flexible
earphones

* Plug and play video with 3D stereo support

* Plugs into a laptop or standard PC through a simple USB and VGA
connection

* Field upgradeability keeps the VR920 current with latest
software/firmware

* Can be worn with or without prescription glasses

The iWear VR920 will be available at the end of March 2007 for $399
at www.icuiti.com.

Check out the iWear VR920 at the 2007 Game Developers Conference
Expo, March 7-9, in San Francisco, Moscone Centre, North Hall, booth
# 5701.

Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com

Comments

  • AragoniAragoni Member UncommonPosts: 384
    A question. Won't this make you blind? I mean. the screen is so close so you will sooner or later get weaker eye
  • nexus42nexus42 Member Posts: 288
    The links at the bottom are boinked.

    ...Pika

  • Unknown
    I don't know to much about the health of eyes, but focusing on something that close to your eyes can't be healthy. I mean reading a book that is a inch away from your eye gets uncomfertable after just a few seconds, that discomfert is your bodies way of telling you that you shouldn't be doing it. Just to try it write a few lines on a piece of paper, then hold the piece of paper up to where your eye glasses would be.
  • psyconiuspsyconius Member Posts: 272
    First off.. this is amazing. I am already giddy about them..



    Secondly... It probably is bad for your eyes.. But I'd rather shave off a few years of vision in my later years(which won't be too pretty to look at the way things are headed now anyway) to enjoy amazing immersion now. =P

    --
    psyconius Cthulhu
    Gothika Studios

  • hotwuhotwu Member UncommonPosts: 16
    all i need now is intravenous feeding and beaver in a can to keep me from ever wanting to leave the basement.
  • GoDTiMEGoDTiME Member Posts: 3
    If anyone is at the GDC, try this VR system and give us some info about how it works and plays with it, please :)
  • TillerTiller Member LegendaryPosts: 11,489
    looks like the charater eye wear (goggles) SOE gave you for buying the collector edition of SWG back in 03.
    SWG Bloodfin vet
    Elder Jedi/Elder Bounty Hunter
     
  • DentoDento Member UncommonPosts: 138
    Originally posted by GoDTiME

    If anyone is at the GDC, try this VR system and give us some info about how it works and plays with it, please :)

     Yeah please we need more info!

    These things could be awesome, just imagine no more huge monitors taking up space on your desks and total immersion.

    Wow I can't wait to see these things for myself 

  • GameloadingGameloading Member UncommonPosts: 14,182
    400$ !? no way!
  • anti!imac010anti!imac010 Member Posts: 80
    Originally posted by Taera

    What gamer hasn't dreamed of virtual reality gameplay? With the help of Icuiti's new interactive Video Eyeware for gamers, gamers everywhere can take a step closer to complete immersion with integrated head tracking, speakers and microphone, and more!

    As part of Icuiti s family of Video Eyewear products, the iWear VR920 is the first video communications tool for the Internet that ties in visual and verbal communications. With a large field of view optics, integrated head tracking, speakers and microphone, users can move, look around, listen, and communicate with each other almost like being in the real world.

    So by wearing these 3D glasses we are in the Matrix but if we take them off its back to 'the real world'? Well, almost to the real ('virtual') world anyways.



    Seriously though, it seems nice. It's been awhile since I have heard of a 3D glasses product in awhile. That would be so cool to have a pair because I did have some but the drivers were way to old and the Co. went out of business to get any updates or support for it. It would be cool if these were effective enough to enjoy using rather than to annoy our poor eyes while we are gaming. But I'll give you my opinion about hardware like this: when you get something like this to work fairly well, then the experience is way cool! I have tried many 3D games before with virtual glasses and it's just...wow. The whole 'virtual gaming' idea is really sweet if it done right and will balance well for the user. If you can get great user experience out of it and have a great product and no complaints e.g. *if you wear these you eyes will get all messed up* Other then that, more power to the best of emulating the virtual world.  



    *returns from the The Matrix*

  • psyconiuspsyconius Member Posts: 272
    I think, in theory, these glasses would let you not have to buy the highest end video cards. If it runs in 1024x768 and looks good, then you are saving some gpu power right there :)

    --
    psyconius Cthulhu
    Gothika Studios

  • anti!imac010anti!imac010 Member Posts: 80
    *agrees* Even when I had my old pair my graphics were on a PCI video card running at (1024x7680?) worked just fine for me or for the best virtual experience you can just use your imagination and just feel like you are owning all those Nubs.
  • RobbgobbRobbgobb Member UncommonPosts: 674
    I keep hoping for VR stuff but at same time kinda afraid of it happening. Sounds more and more of a way to forget about RL and be a vegetable
  • Vortex500Vortex500 Member Posts: 392
    Guess we all will look like that Laforge dude in "Star Trek: The next generation" now.



    www.icuiti.com/VR920.html



    The Second Day Vet
  • Vortex500Vortex500 Member Posts: 392
    Sorry this might be a little offtopic, but i had a good laugh when I found this picture while I was searching for VR920.



    www.gamasutra.com/gdc2004/features/20040326/KodakStereoDisplayPrototype.jpg
  • Unknown
    Originally posted by Vortex500

    Sorry this might be a little offtopic, but i had a good laugh when I found this picture while I was searching for VR920.



    www.gamasutra.com/gdc2004/features/20040326/KodakStereoDisplayPrototype.jpg

    Simply awsome, got a good chuckle out of me. Reminds me of some of those early laptops that were absoltuly massive ^-^

  • AutemOxAutemOx Member Posts: 1,704

    The screens are virtual and viewed at 9 feet according the the article.  They will not hurt your eyes, in fact in many ways they are much better for your eyes than a computer screen, especially if you sit close to the monitor.

    The light is projected in such a way that the screen seems to be 9 feet away.  This is much like the myvu glasses which I have tried, I believe myvu is more like 4 feet distance.  Your eyes are focusing at 9 feet, and they will not be strained any more than if you were watching a television that is 9 feet away. 

    This sort of thing has sorta been available for a while now but it is too expensive and impratical to really launch off just yet.

    Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.

  • scrow76scrow76 Member UncommonPosts: 2

    Sounds ace - but what if you have a lazy eye that you dont use properly? :)

    S'Crow

  • AutemOxAutemOx Member Posts: 1,704
    Originally posted by scrow76


    Sounds ace - but what if you have a lazy eye that you dont use properly? :)
    S'Crow

    That would be interesting   Well if its like the myvu (or the couple others I've seen) then the projection is seperate to each eye...  Like you could close one eye and still see the screen fine.  So having a lazy eye...  It would be the same as it is with a normal tv (which depending on your condition might not be too wonderful but is probably not noticable )

    Hell I've gone weeks with just wearing one contact lens and your brain quickly adjusts to ignore most input from the eye with poor sight, leaving you feeling perfectly normal.  Thats basically what happens with lazy eye as well, as one eye has difficulty 'communicating' with the brain its vision becomes blurred, leading to the brain ignoring it in the same way that it would ignore the eye without a contact lens in.

    Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.

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